Shoulder pain/squats

[sqal]

I recently tried improving my form on squats from watching youtube videos. Been trying to keep my wrists straight with a narrower grip. I've also been using the cue elbows up instead of the elbows down and in like I learned from Rippletoes book.

Got pain in my left shoulder with a warmup weight doing the above. Tried again a few days later but tried to revert to my old wider grip, but I may have been using the cues 'elbows up' during this set and felt the pain again. Felt the pain the first working set and stopped. The pain went away the next day so I hope I didn't do any permanent damage to it.


Are putting my elbows back and up likely to cause this shoulder pain? Or could it still be the hand placement?

Should I take time off from squatting or could I carry on with my routine?


Plan on reading through the starting strength chapters again to see if I can hopefully relearn the whole exercise.

[jk202]

Can you get your hands into the squat position without the weight of the bar pushing you there? I can't, that's why I rarely back squat.

If your gym has an SSB bar try that, or work on mobility

[blazy4lyfe]

i'm not sure what you mean by putting your elbows back and up means, it would be great if you have a picture or a video. but in general, you want thoracic spine extension, scapulas pushing into the back of your rib cage, and if you are doing high bar squats you want to get your elbows pointed down to the floor or under the bar, if you're doing low bar squats you want to get your arms to be in line with your torso throughout the entire rep.

[sqal]

Can you get your hands into the squat position without the weight of the bar pushing you there? I can't, that's why I rarely back squat.

If your gym has an SSB bar try that, or work on mobility

When I try a really narrow grip my left arm is hard to get my wrist straight so I've been doing a mobility exercise another member mentioned. I was told it was a shoulder mobility issue. I can get the hand positions without using the weight. But I feel as soon as I start the lift the pain starts in the left shoulder. At first I thought it felt uneven, like the shelf on my left wide didn't fit as snug as it usually does.

[sqal]

i'm not sure what you mean by putting your elbows back and up means, it would be great if you have a picture or a video. but in general, you want thoracic spine extension, scapulas pushing into the back of your rib cage, and if you are doing high bar squats you want to get your elbows pointed down to the floor or under the bar, if you're doing low bar squats you want to get your arms to be in line with your torso throughout the entire rep.

I think this is the problem because my elbows are not really in line with my body when performing the low bar squat. They seem to be pointed more behind me. I watched a youtube video and the cue was 'elbows up' and I seem to overdid it.

[sqal]

Figured I would update this.

Read through the starting strength chapters and found that I've been doing quite a few things wrong.

My back wasn't as horizontal as it's supposed to be and I wasn't pushing my knees out enough. I also changed my left hand position an inch to the left and was able to keep my wrist straight while still having the tightness there to support the bar.

Was able to work my way up from an empty bar to my last weight done and even did 3 more sets of a new personal record. I didn't feel any pain at all in my left shoulder. So I think it was a combination of my body being too vertical on the movement and me trying to keep my hand spacing symmetrical. Just a theory anyway. Felt a better workout from all this too so it was definitely worth an extra few hours effort.

Still need to work on my 'bounce' out of the bottom, but overall I feel quite happy with today's workout.

[Aguisa92]

I had the same issue with my shoulders when squatting, and had to take time off. My issue was that I was doing high-bar squat with my elbows too high, which was putting strain on the shoulder.

To sort this, I widened my grip, made sure my forearms were inline.

I also found some decent shoulder warmups and stretches that I did to help. I will head off and see if I can find the videos of the stretches that helped me and let you know what they were

[sqal]

I've been doing L-Fly Lat Raise with External Rotation's and shoulder dislocations with a broomstick handle so far.